


Tea & Sympathy

by Northland



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Community: cliche_bingo, Gen, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-05
Updated: 2009-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-04 04:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/pseuds/Northland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chocolate biscuits are the ultimate secret weapon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea & Sympathy

Even tea was fraught these days. Annie wouldn't brew up for the squad any longer. Gene clearly thought she should, but he could go stuff himself. And she felt awkward asking -- telling -- Phyllis to do it. Even though it was her job.

It was better when it was just the two of them, sitting in the canteen sharing a laugh at the latest daft thing Sam had said or Ray had done. When the rest of the squad were in the room, it seemed like a betrayal, somehow, like Annie looked down on Phyllis now.

Phyllis had said all the right things about Annie's promotion. Annie thought she probably meant them. But she felt as though she'd taken something away from Phyllis, which was ridiculous because of course Phyllis could never be a detective. At her age, even a man wouldn't be moved up. For heaven's sake, when she'd joined the force WPCs were new and controversial. Annie told herself she didn't owe Phyllis anything -- and yet it still felt wrong to ask her for tea.

She steeled herself and did it anyway. "Would you put the kettle on, Phyllis? I could murder a cup."

Phyllis' mouth squared into a hacked-off shape, but she didn't say anything. She did get up and walk to the little hotplate, shoes clacking loudly with each put-upon step. Phyllis should have been an actress. She'd mastered all of the many ways to silently announce that you were doing something only under duress. Her sighs were legendary.

Time to bring out the secret weapon. Annie opened the drawer of her desk -- her _own_ desk, one she'd had to fight for -- and shoved aside the pile of old files Sam had insisted she go over in her so-copious spare time. The chocolate biscuits she'd bought this morning at the shop on her way to work lay underneath, miraculously uncrushed.

When Phyllis stomped back over and slapped the tray down, cups rattling, Annie pulled out the packet and shook it temptingly. "Have time for a biscuit?"

Phyllis looked down her nose at Annie, but hooked her ankle around a nearby chair and dragged it over, shrieking against the lino. She sat down and removed a single biscuit from the packet, her fastidious grip clearly conveying that Annie shouldn't believe anything had changed just because her offering had been accepted.

They chewed in silence for a moment. Annie swallowed her last bite and gulped a mouthful of tea, trying to think of something else to say. Lord, her desk was a sight. She brushed crumbs off a crime-scene photo that had somehow come loose from its folder. Joan Taggart's face stared up, the bruises about her neck that Annie knew would have been purplish showing black in the old exposure.

Phyllis leaned forward and poked at the photo with one nicotine-stained finger. "This what Tyler's got you working on these days?"

"Yeh," Annie said, flushing. She knew Sam didn't mean it as an insult. He honestly seemed to think she would solve some of these chilled cases, or whatever it was he called them. But Ray loved to pass remarks about letting the bird loose on the only cases she couldn't bollix up.

"I remember that one," Phyllis said meditatively over the rim of her cup. "Always thought it was Joan's brother-in-law, myself. But Gene believed his wife when she said he'd been home all night."

"Really?"

"Strange, eh? I don't think Gene's believed an alibi that thin since the day he found out Father Christmas wasn't real." Phyllis smirked. "Poor Joan was no better than she should be. None of the squad were too worked up about solving her murder."

"What made you think the brother-in-law," Annie dredged a name up from the back of her mental filing cabinet, "Peter was guilty?"

"He fancied Joan, you could tell. And her sister wasn't best pleased about it." Phyllis popped the rest of her biscuit into her mouth. "You can learn a lot about someone talking over a friendly cup of tea, without a caution."

"That you can." Annie licked chocolate off her fingers. "So why'd she lie for him, if you think she knew what he did? I mean, her own sister..."

Phyllis shrugged. "She hated him too, right enough. I figure she thought about whether she wanted him rotting in gaol or at home where she could punish him herself."

Annie slid the packet of biscuits back across the desk to Phyllis. "Does Peter still live on Shiller's Lane?"

"Mmhm. But last I heard, Betty's finally left him and gone back to her mother's. She might have another story to tell about Jean's death now. If someone were to ask."

"Someone ought to do that," Annie agreed.

Phyllis sat back in her chair and took another biscuit.

Annie yanked open her drawer and spilled a dozen old files over the desktop, pawing through them until she found the one she wanted. "Now, what about this here, armed robbery at the Bull?"

Phyllis snorted into her tea. "Ah, the whole town knew who pulled that. Ask Ray. But they could never pin it on him, and he died in '71. Tyler's got you barking up the wrong tree on that one."

Annie shuffled that file to the bottom of the pile. "And those indecent assaults down behind the canal?"

Twenty minutes later, every biscuit had vanished. The cold mugs were ringed with dark circles of forgotten tea. But Phyllis was still talking as Annie covered the file folders with scribbled notes.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't run this one by my usual Brit-pickers, so let me know if anything doesn't ring true to UK ears.


End file.
